Allis-Chalmers was entered the manufacturing business in 1840s as E.P. Allis of Milwaukee. The company started with producing waterwheels, sawmills and grindstones. While originally incorporated in Delaware, the company soon became a major manufacturer of steam engines and industrial equipment in the Milwaukee area after merging with other firms—Fraser & Chalmers were a large steel and mining retort manufacturer. The company's presence in Milwaukee became so large that its plants were once used as a landmark there, and, in particular, its "west" plant may have lent its name to the city of West Allis.

Allis-Chalmers started the farm equipment business in 1914 at about the time of the World War I. The company would also play a major part as a manufacturer in the World War II building pumps for uranium separation and building electric motors for U.S. Navy submarines. Allis-Chalmers also built marine steam engines for Liberty ships.

A series of acquisitions were made by the company beginning in 1928 with the acquisition of Monarch Tractor Company. In 1931, the company acquired Advance-Rumely based in LaPorte, Indiana. Buda Engine Co., based in Harvey, Illinois was acquired in 1953. Two years later the company acquired Gleaner Harvester Co., and in 1959 it acquired the French company Vendeuvre. Also in 1959, Allis-Chalmers acquired Tractomotive Corporation located in Deerfield, IL. Allis-Chalmers also acquired Simplicity, which was later sold to its management in 1983.

The company began to struggle in the 1980s in a climate of rapid economic change. It was forced amid financial struggles to sell its farm equipment division to K-H-D (Klöckner-Humboldt-Deutz) AG of Germany in 1985, the owners of Deutz-Fahr, which was renamed Deutz-Allis. Deutz-Allis later was sold to management and became what is now the AGCO Corporation (Allis-Gleaner Corporation), and tractors were sold under the AGCO-Allis name - though later this became just AGCO. What remained of the manufacturing businesses were dispersed in 1998 and the company officially closed its offices in Milwaukee in January 1999.

The company has produced a lot of different tractors and farm equipment, but it is not the subject of our website. There is a range of scrapers and dump trucks, which you can find below.